Review sites using your content?

100......

would you be mad if they did it without using a linkcode?

Honestly though, review sites aren't really designed to sell people different sites. They are designed to get high quality targetted SE traffic. I gaurantee thebestporn is trying to send the sale to you. I also highly doubt many people are pursuaded to other sites. You run single girl sites. No one searching for Jordan Capri is going to have their mind changed and directed towards Julia Blue ( SOS). It just doesn't happen.

I can only second that

I'm speaking from experience in the kind of traffic that review sites get. It is not easy to sell targetted traffic to other sites. Even if they make $5 more at siteA, if the user was searching for SiteB, the ratios and overall profits will be greated with SiteB. Anyone who says otherwise is lying and are throwing away money.

As for broad traffic, you have no grounds to complain about that.

The only real problem I see would be if they are using your content to sell other sites. e.g. your pics, other site links.

Steve, remember the SE's are NOT paid for listings or government entities...

Next, also remember that the more reviews you get, the more branding...

Then, remember that you can seriously update your websites because they still have a look and feel of 2002.... Think, http://tour4.ravenriley.com/?nats=NjM6Mzox,5,0,0,0&p=1 and then look at your sites. You need a designers that makes shit look flashier (making up words as I go along)...

They do unless you are saying you get zero joins from TBP.

Any review site that does not include some critical information and ranks every site as 99/100, and there are lots of them out there, have zero credibility with the readers.

There are a lot of shady review sites out there but to use TBP as an example is crazy.

There are so many programs now and they are automated, so its very natural that the profit is the measurement. Out of total traffic, review-sites must be small compared to all the portals/TGPs etc. And these other sites promote the same way, not by giving score, comments and so on, but they give the most profitable sites better spots ("recommended" sites, "hall of fame" galleries etc.)
Its the same princip, and if its disliked, you can't do anything about it, except banning affiliates from promoting other programs... which is not a good idea.

As an affiliate, I would say the best way for a program to get better spots, is to give the affiliates unique tools to promote with. Either by personal contact and/or content reward. Its not only competition between programs, but also between affiliates

Hey Steve,

Just got back from the Xbiz parties.

I got your e-mail "half assed bullshit, as usual --- i'm fucking sick of your shitty reviews" earlier today and spoke in length to Lisa. My reply back to you obviously wasn't helpful to you, and it's a shame that you think our reviews are "half assed bullshit".

I'm not really sure if there's anything I can say to change your mind. What I want everyone that knows us to realize is that we're here to make money WHILE helping webmasters and users as best we can. If anyone ever has a problem with a review, we will go the extra mile to explain our review further and even correct things we may have overlooked. If my staff can't do the job, then I'll step up to the plate and work with you personally. Our reviewers are honest as they come, and work hard to provide users with clear opinions and facts. At the same time, we want to give webmasters honest opinions about their members area, hopefully providing useful information that could improve their business.

Nothing, I promise you, is ever "fixed" or "skewed" regardless of what deals we make (discounts) or affiliates payout. Discounts are done to pass on savings to our users, and sites that have done them so far have been very satisifed. I wouldn't want an affiliate to do us any special favors... they do it because we'll both make more money. Our users are VERY price conscious, and better prices will reflect that in the overall scoring/rank of the site.

I never have had any problems with Steve, and this is something I wish him and I could workout. If things go public, then we'll handle it that way. If he declares war, then I'll try and workout a peaceful resolution. If that doesn't succeed, then I go about my business and he can fight until he's satisfied.

I wish I could answer the replies to this thread directly, but I have to get some sleep for a seminar in the morning. If anyone has any questions about our process, feel free to hit us up (admin at thebestporn.com).

Have a great night!
Rick

Very professional reply. Win/Win/Win(surfer), right? I'm curious if Steve is getting Zero signups from sites like TBP...

Remember, when it comes to War... there are no winners.

in the last year, i have written over 1000 reviews, mostly for sites that require - REQUIRE - all reviews be 100% honest. i have given low scores to low quality sites and have even written reviews recommending the surfer look elsewhere. i have also written reviews for clients that were glowing and honest reviews for sites like Video Box - which has gotten my highest scores to date. and i heard from a site owner today telling me - without knowing i wrote his review - about his site's new review on one site and how many sales it has made for him.

i've written reviews about terrible sites with almost no content that still made lots of sales, too.

there are plenty of honest review sites out there. i've written for a bunch of them and they make a lot of sales for the sites they list. but i suppose if a program really doesn't want to be listed, they should be removed. after all, it's not big loss if a review site has hundreds of no reviews.

Unfortunately Basschick you and I both know that there are some review sites out there that push the sponsors who pay them the most. It is simply impossible for a sponsor to have a sites that are the best in every niche they are aimed at.

Every sponsor has at least one site that is not up to the standard of all the others and yet some review sites still list those crappy sites as the best in their niche ... even when they obviously are not.

someone in this thread is getting

you're right, and the sad thing is they will make less money in the long run.

bookmarkers who trust the reviews in a particular review site will buy through that site again and again and again. but when a guy sees a great review and joins a site that is... er... lackluster, he won't be coming back to that review site.

I went to a couple of review sites today - TBP and Adult Reviews - to catch up on what they currently considered the best sites. Maybe I didn't look at them closely enough in the past, but I used to believe they were objective. Not any more: I realize that we will not all agree on which sites are best, but it's stretching credibility too far placing the same sponsors' sites at the top of niche after niche when few if any of them belong there.

Which baffles me up to a point, because you can get the edge with the search engines regardless of which sites you rank at the top and if you can dig out the few gems, you might not be promoting exactly the same sites as everyone else. Above all, shouldn't review sites more than any other type be trying to build surfer confidence? Apparently not. Short-term profits rule again...

But that said, for several years I wrote car tests and reports and also restaurant reviews and from that perspective I'm going to disagree with a lot of what Steve Lightspeed has written.

Putting aside the "personality" reviewers who build their readership by being outrageously critical, most good reviewers writing for broad audiences will try to find balance. They won't do that by ignoring the bad and playing up the good, but by trying to steer different groups of their readers towards or away from the subject of their review. Sometimes you can be broadly enthusiastic and occasionally you feel you have to be entirely negative, but usually you find a middle path because that best serves more of your readers.

I have been flown around the world to drive new cars and loaned cars for a week at a time to test them, without any pressure to write anything except an honest opinion. So I certainly wouldn't consider temporary access to a member area as reason to only write positive things. Comparison is inevitable and even necessary: there isn't a whole lot of value for readers you point away from something, if you don't suggest an alternative.

Quoting prices is also important because without putting your comments and overall assessment into the context of price the review would be largely meaningless. And since you are reviewing for buyers, not representing the sellers, everything must be seen from their point of view. If you believe that a site justifies a higher price because of the type of content it has, the frequency of its updates or whatever, you can say so. But to be credible, you also have to say if you believe it is too expensive.

Certainly reviews are subjective: that's the whole point. No-one cares more than peripherally that a movie is so many minutes long and cost so many million dollars to make. People read movie reviews partly for entertainment and partly to help them decide which movie to go watch.

In the long run, certainly for operators of better sites, it is to their advantage for reviewers to be credible: which unfortunately means having to live with bad reviews sometimes. It also means not tinkering with the review sites via special prices, favorable listings, etc. That is such a self-destructive path to take, I couldn't believe how obviously it is being done.

Steve should stop smoking crack.

damn the tempature in this thread is HOT, and i dont mean sexy...

That's true.

I recently was asked to review a site and was given a special deal price, but I was told I had to give it a higher score. I thought about it briefly but realized my integrity can't be bought for $14.97.

I had a sponsor ask why I don't have images from the members' areas in the reviews I post, since everyone else does. I decided against it due to 18 2257 3 years ago and stand behind that -- it's easier to not have to remove thousands of images someday if the law changes.

I don't do the "if you like this site, you'll like such-and-such better" because I want the surfer to make that decision.

I posted one review of a site that got a 55 score due to lack of content, lack of quality of content, misleading links, etc. The site owner emailed and threatened me and since he's not worth it, I pulled the link and ate the cost of the review. He's listed on 6 other review sites and the highest score he got on those was 60 .... seems we all were right, his site simply sucks.

Many sponsors (large and small) will read a review and then make changes based on comments made by the reviewer. Sometimes it's something as small as having to reenter your password repeatedly, confusing navigation, or links that don't work.

I think Steve is pissed that they are using his brand/se traffic and offering the left colume as a x/upsale - most sites do this to max their sales out.

I had a few problems with TBP as well, they gave me a shitty score as they only looked and one area of content and missed the main section and they never fixed it upon many requests, TBP can kiss my ass as well.

Now it would be nice to have a New Review site not run by Ego's


my 2 cents

pam, we can do $29.96 for you

If anyone else would post this and even with a new nick, you would be all telling him to shut the fuck up. But most of you agree with Steve. Fucking asskissers. Steve, if you don't like review sites, don't let them review your sites, fuck.

iv also noticed some review sites have rather high CB and Credit ratios, thier surfers know about the ease of abuse visa allows i guess. or they just end up buying too many and regret it.

Lightspeed...

You've said a lot about what I've felt since I first fell out with Rich Media. They had Mr small town, middle America review Sahara Gets Dirty for their Porn Inspector site. I don't think the fool had ever seen, let alone met someone from India. They decided to make a big deal of my complaint flaming me everywhere, and banning the site from all their programmes... LOL.

The next one was Sir Rodney... For similar reasons.

Because I run niche sites, I always ask for someone who knows and understands it to do the review. I also tell them now, that if I think they've made errors these must be corrected before the review is published. If they don't agree to these terms.. I don't let them do a review .. Simple as that.

There's no real approval process or anything for getting a followup review done. As long as it's been six months and we have an active password, you're welcome to request one anytime (I posted the URL earlier in this thread for the place to go) and we'll get it done. What's your site John69? Email us if you prefer, or you can post here.

Out of curiousity, where do you see that we've unfairly placed certain programs higher than they deserve? Any reviews/scores are based on the site alone and our opinions on them.

On the other hand, what kind of review site are you if you take down anyone's negative review who just asks for it? Then we'll start getting emails from users wondering why (for example) Tawnee Stone isn't reviewed when she's one of the most popular solo sites out there?

I think a few people hit the nail on the head here that we're in a unique position with loyalties to both users and site owners. We strive to keep our database as complete as possible for sake of having as many sites as possible for the users.

I agree you don't see Janes Guide using affiliate links when they do their reviews.

I see some affiliate links right on her front page there; less than you'd expect, but they're there.

Once again: reviews are not written for the benefit of the sites being reviewed.

My articles used to appear in several publications as diverse as niche-audience magazines, tabloid and upmarket daily newspapers. Their readers were my audience and that readership doesn't change from one week to the next in line with whatever is being reviewed. In some cases that actually dictates the choice of review subject, but more often it simply changes the perspective. For a site gathering a broad range of traffic from multiple sources, it is far more relevant to have reviews written by "Mr small town, middle America" than by someone who "understands" the niche. Like it or not, he will see the site through the eyes of the majority of that site's visitors.

As for refusing to let someone do a review, I assume you mean you don't give them temporary access to your site, because you cannot actually stop them doing a review. And I can assure you it is overall much more productive to handle reviewers courteously, offer them assistance and material, than it is to put up barriers.

Not true. I had a paysite years ago. I shut it down due to all the costs. I know what it's like. It is hard to make a profit with all the costs.

I need to back up the guys at The Best Porn here though. They are not using content, much like my site currently is not using content, except for a small screenshot on the category page. When surfing for porn, for me it usually boils down to looks, as it must for majority of surfers out there. If they don't find Tawnee Stone attractive, I doubt they are going to join her site. I love Lightspeed's sites and have a nice review of Jordan Capri's site at my review site, http://www.mrpinks.com/jordan.html

I don't there is a need to call for a war against review sites. Honetsly, where are you going to find any type of page (TGP, Blog, Review, Link List, etc...) that just promotes your stuff? I can't think of any off the top of my head. The surfer wants variety and the surfer ultimately makes the decision on what site they want to join.

Her REVIEWS do not have affiliate links in them.

You can buy banner placement & AVN ads on her site though and she has a gallery section that has affiliate links.

I gotta backup Ryan here...

Right click the links on this page:
http://www.janesguide.com/newlinks/picshardcore.html
(affiliate links are hidden, check Karups, Sapphic, Twistys, and more)

I know she used to take a fee from the webmaster to get a review done, so her business model has always been slightly diff than most review sites. Not sure if that's changed or not.

I like Jane a lot, so obviously this isn't an attack on her. She should get paid, and I think she'll be the first to say it doesn't the integrity of the review.

steve, i recently signed up for lightspeedcash and got approved, would you mind if i made similar pages of your lightspeed girls as I have for the other girls. www.foxyreviews.co.uk , if yes I shall get started on it straight away.

Every other type of site in this industry takes the position of the sponsors and works WITH the sponsors to sell a site TO the consumer.

This type of site takes the position of the consumer and sets all the sponsors into a little competition AGAINST one another.

Obviously the sponsors have nothing at all to gain from this artificial competition except for a small amount of short term sales from a new traffic source, but in the long run they will likely lose much more than they gain due to increased consumer awareness of image/video quality, what they should expect for updates, why isn't this site keeping up with the Jones's, etc... the only way to combat this loss is to invest more capital into "improving" the sites at a higher rate than normal, however that is by definition a never ending battle that will only escalate. As an affiliate I'd rather see that capital go towards higher payouts than helping to increase consumer expectations.

That taken into account with the fact that the consumer is being reminded to cancel subscriptions before trial periods have ended (there should be something in every sponsor's TOS forbidding that from appearing on any affiliate site IMO) is guaranteed to turn premium SE traffic into total shit traffic. It may convert decently however as mentioned above by those with personal experience it will have NO reason to retain and likely incur higher than normal chargebacks/refunds.

Once a potential customer is shown these tricks they aren't likely to forget them and will have been turned into a lower quality customer forever, whether they keep doing trial joins at the review site (and their bookmarkers must be mostly this type of customer) or go on to other sites elsewhere.

There's nothing wrong with "reviewing" a site per se to summarize it's own merits, however this setting the sponsor sites into competition against one another and training consumers into becoming trial-subscription cancelling chargeback machines shouldn't be tolerated.

BTW this isn't directed at TBP exclusively, just an observation of this type of promotion.

BTW, we are more than willing to review sites (not many others will) without affiliate programs. It sucks when they rank well cuz sure I know we won't get paid, but my reviewers are conditioned not to let that affect them. Go ask these sites if we've ever asked for even a link back (which we should do btw lol):

1. Dainews (86.0)
2. Celebrity Movie Archive (85.9)
3. Viv Thomas Video (85.6)
4. ALS Scan (85.1)
5. Seska (85.0)
6. Qmov (84.5)
7. Naughty Lounge (83.8)
8. Naked News (83.6)
9. Naughty BBW (83.5)
10. Viv Thomas (82.9)
11. Newbie Nudes (82.3)
12. ATK Archives (82.3)
13. Perfect 10 (80.5)
14. Pet Girls (80.5)
15. Hardcore Honeyz (80.4)
16. Innocent High (80.0)
17. Helen Volga (80.0)
18. Booty Moves (80.0)
19. United Pimps Network (80.0)
20. Rubber Eva (80.0)
21. Slastyonoff.com (79.6)
22. Babes Park (79.6)
23. Hot Creampie Shots (79.5)
24. Claire's Secret Diary (79.5)
25. ALS Angels (79.4)
26. Restrained Elegance (79.4)
27. Down With The Swirl (79.3)
28. Art of Bondage (79.3)
29. Casie Lynn (79.0)
30. Just Nude Celebs (79.0)
31. Young Boys (79.0)
32. Jasmine Sinclair (78.9)
33. Bondage By Request (78.9)
34. Amanda Lexx (78.6)
35. Project Pee (78.5)
36. Diva Files (78.5)
37. Kat Noir (78.4)
38. Linda O'Neil (78.3)
39. Pixotna (78.1)
40. Ariel X (78.1)
41. Sclorch (78.0)
42. Girls From Ipanema (78.0)
43. Chick Trainer (77.6)
44. Amateur Spanish Feet (77.6)
45. Dawn Desire (77.5)
46. Bondage Cafe (77.5)
47. Pee Orgy (77.5)
48. D Archives (77.3)
49. Captive Culture (77.0)
50. Solo Interviews (77.0)

Therehahaha8217;s 257 sites total.

Wow you learn something new every day.

Actually this isnt true. The reviews generate a steady stream of targetted search engine traffic - which is some of the most stable, profitable traffic there is... for me, anyway.

I just want to back-up the review sites here and those that I work with - the traffic and sales are greatly appreciated.

You write about "this type of site" as if online porn is the only industry which has reviews, or at least as if reviews are written without introducing an element of competition. Simply not true: pick cars, cameras, wines, pretty much anything you like, and you will find head-to-head reviews all over the place.

The way review sites are monetizing themselves is, I agree, unorthodox: newspapers, magazines, or whatever media in which reviews appear, usually sell ads rather than attempting to earn from affiliate links. Cosmetically that's certainly different to what we are seeing on most porn review sites, but is it really so different in practise? Even if yes, what options does a start-up site that isn't big enough to sell ad space have? Given the standards of this industry to date, can you imagine trying to run an honest review site on the revenue from advertisers alone, even if you had enough traffic for that to be possible in theory?

Ha and when I predicted that review sites were going to turn into the next TGP and that quality was going to go in the shitter everyone laughed and hated....



told you so

The whole info on how to cancel info came from our site I guess, but in no way do we tell people to cancel before their trials are up to avoid getting charged. We used to get several emails daily "cancelling" their account with us since they don't understand that we don't actually run the sites we review. Since putting up the guide on how to find customer support links (from either the paysite itself or the billing company), we receive only a few cancellation emails a week. They were taking too much time on our end to forward them to the right place/people.

We don't mind being dropped to revshare if there's ever a problem with too high of a cancellation rate or anything. We encourage people to stick around to sites they like when possible as we want to make more money for program owners (as well as ourselves in the case of revshare).

However, we also want users to know how to cancel should they want to, as it seems a lot of them were very confused. We are definitely in the game of earning trust from the users so they want to use our site exclusively in the future. On the other hand, we're not trying to screw webmasters over either, and I really don't see anything on our site that encourages anyone to cancel before a certain time (we actually push full memberships whenever possible to avoid any limited trials that we haven't found yet since users seem to really have a problem with those as well).

For now, we have that guide up from a year or more ago, and we have a link to the processor a site uses should they need to get in touch with them for any reason. But in the end, more money for program owners means more money for us, so we're all for keeping them around as long as possible.

Lol I lub you man ;))))

Good read sofar though

And this is the biggest bullshit I read today. Thats like saying Waterworld was good cause it cost over a 100 million lol. Was it you arguing with me last time in that review thread about lightspeed sites and their bonus sites? Lol funny.

I dont find the way you rank paysites is fare because its mostly based on
price. More quality paysite should be more expensive, there is a huge difference in costs and quality between solo girl site with 100 pic sets and 20 movies and the site with 3-5 updates per week, daily live shows and better looking girls with daily interaction with members. The price difference shouldn't affect the rank in this case.
You can buy cheap car and you can buy expensive quality car and the latest are enjoying the higher rank.

Steve, we're all here to make money. Perhaps you disagree with the review site business model in general, or the way some sites are presenting your product. But if you have a problem with how your content is used, put it in your TOS and the logic you've outlined (i.e. no links to any pages that promote other sponsors) will need to be applied to all your affiliates, including blogs, tgps etc. Or do it case by case and close the accounts you feel are giving your products a bad image. Hey, it's your program and nobody can tell you how to run it.

I think the real issue here is that you're not satisfied with your score, because you wouldn't say anything if your sites were in the top 15. Tawnee Stone scored 80.3 based on the scores all the other review sites have given it. Which is not very far from 80.1 from TBP. If you're asking review sites to bend their rules for you, I think you might as well ask them to stop promoting your sites.

Bottom line is that as much as it pisses you off, you'd make less money without them being your affiliates.

Well, not really if you consider what happens to the traffic. They don't deliver SE traffic to the sponsor sites anymore than a TGP delivers SE traffic to sponsor sites - some of the traffic may BEGIN at a SE, then it is introduced to the site which conditions the traffic and delivers it to the sponsor with a vastly different potential than it had before coming upon the site. There is a huge difference between that type of traffic and true SE traffic delivered from an SEO guru.

In the case of a SE visitor arriving at a TGP, they are presented with gobs of free samples and this typically dilutes their value before they arrive at a sponsor. Now they know where to get a bunch of free stuff.

In the case of a SE visitor arriving at a review site, they are presented with loads of information about competing sites, what to expect in terms of quality compared to other sites (and therefore a reason to cancel if not provided with it), and methods of cancellation. Again this dilutes their value.

Real SE traffic that goes from a simple text link or small BS seo text page or whatever direct to a paysite suffers none of these problems. So comparing that type of traffic to SE traffic merely because it begins at the same locations isn't really appropriate.

This industry is different from those you've mentioned above; the reviewers are typically not also the retailers for any of those items.

This industry is also in a relatively early stage and the manufacturers (sponsors) are in a position to be able to control the methods by which their sites are promoted, although many do not do so. My point is that they should, it would make this industry more profitable overall or at least keep it profitable, instead of allowing it to slide into some pit of competing for the lowest common denominator.

But if review sites are relying mostly upon SE traffic to send joins then someone else's link in the SE's would simply replace those of the review sites and continue sending traffic... the only traffic that would be lost to the sponsor would be those of bookmarkers to the review sites, which seem to be of questionable value at best.

It's interesting to note that so far none of the review sites have commented on the subscriber retention of their customers.

My review site despite being shemale niche and I run a shemale paysite try to be very honest. Just read carefully the comments. I think we can not but in the same basket good ones and bad ones.

Exactly.. if Tawnee Stone was the highest rated, and every other review showed Tawnee Stone on the side bar at #1, this thread might tell a different story.

Well I've read this arguement numerous times and my take on it is this:
If the review site knows what he's doing, it's a good thing - regardless of the review.

By getting your site listed you are doing this:
1) Getting a higher quality member who likes to know what he's buying/shops around
2) Higher quality SE food with your 'Brand' on there
3) Although you're review has other links on it - your links are ALSO under other reviews so it's an exchange + more exposure + they may not be content with that site they signed up for and will then come to you. The links are meant more for SEs than to 'steer' your potential buyer away.

It's a common assumption that a 'bad' review gets no sales. I can confirm, from where I stand - it's a myth. Surfers want your opinion but if that site is what they want and that girl/tour/trailers made his pee-pee tingle - you will not sway him away from yanking out the credit card and signing up.

My only beef with Review Sites is that they mention 'all' that's included - bonus sites by name & interlink them. The only reason I disagree with that concept is that they are limiting on the multiple/future sales they can do from one surfer.